Trending HOT Advocacy topics for Rosebank – December 2017

January 9, 2018

Transpower and Roading outcomes from Auckland Transport ..

A key aspect of the RBA is to endeavor to manage your wishes and concerns into making viable submissions in the first instance to the Whau Ward local board Annual plan, and then to successfully see them through implementation at a Council Level.

Auckland Council, Auckland Transport, RBA and Ateed representatives met and discussed with intent the productivity and efficient movement of freight and service traffic in, out and through the Rosebank BID area. Naturally increasing this ease of access includes all who work in Rosebank as growing road congestion steming from the Tunnel opening is becoming increasingly frustrating. There are further such meetings planned for 2018 as all agreed they were fruitful and a good means of keeping all interested parties informed.

The major issues bought up during these discussions were:

Patiki Rd.

The merging of traffic onto the Patiki Road North bound on-ramp making two lanes and incorporating a signal phasing system. Currently some vehicles are just running along the median strip which is not safe, nor legal, and police are aware of this practice. The Waterview tunnel is still in its bedding-down phase as to how it affects contributory roads such as Patiki and whether it has had a substantial bearing on traffic flows throughout the area.

Rosebank and Patiki Road traffic.

Since the Tunnel opening the north bound traffic flow has increased noticeably as we all attest to more- with added people going to the airport, parents and children increasing the traffic head count as they add to the school traffic. Additional congestion is created by heavy industrial related traffic as they attempt to manoeuvre their loads across the main roads and into our premises . But this activity is transporting the life blood of our many industrial businesses and is actually necessary to do what we need to keep our businesses going.

The Rosebank /Patiki roundabout is currently being investigated to enable it to support a more free – flowing northern turn and incorporating it with the general peak flow throughout the region by adding an additional lane during peak time traffic. The Transport Authority are aiming for a 2018/19 start on this project.

They believe that driver education will help the freight problems as longer vehicles and side street roundabouts are not a preferred method of solving main arterial traffic problems.

Workforce Transport Options:

The train and bus connections are working well from Avondale, but there are challenges with the street configuration at Layard St. We need to help move activity along from further West, particularly the Westgate area.

There is a 10 year time frame for the Northwestern busway which will have interchanges at Te Atatu and Lincoln Rd, with direct services to Rosebank Rd.

Corridor Management:

Within the greater context it is noted that one of the 33 CMPs developed across the region is a plan to widen the Rosebank/ Patiki Rd corridor and given due process it should proceed and receive priority funding. This would also help with the roundabout problems.

Transpower.

A major success this year was resisting Transpower’s demands for extensive regulation of land and buildings in buffer zones around its transmission lines.

Following some well resourced advocacy by Transpower throughout the Unitary Plan process, the Independent Hearings Panel went with Transpower and recommended the buffer zones be increased to a distance of 32 metres each side of the centrelines of the 110kV lines and 37 metres each side of the centrelines of 220kV lines.

However, the Council (largely because of pressure from industrial business groups, including the RBA) rejected these recommendations and reduced the buffer zone to 24m (12m either side of a transmission line centreline).

Transpower then appealed this decision to both the High Court and Environment Court. The RBA together with other industrial business groups argued in both courts for the buffer zone to be limited to 24m and ultimately were successful.

For certain RBA businesses, especially those under the Transpower lines in Timothy Place, the reduction in the size of the buffer zones means far less regulation of their land and buildings than would otherwise have been the case.